Hymns for Private Use is a sequence of five songs with texts drawn from early English sources from the 12th to 18th centuries. The first movement, Virga Rosa Virginum, is a macaronic text (having verses in both English and Latin) focusing on the Virgin Mary and her son; as with many pre-modern texts, Christmas is marked with a vision of the cross. The English text is presented narratively while the Latin text is floating, quiet, and ecstatic.

The second movement, The Holy Spirit is by the Hymnodist Anne Steele (1717–1778), and the soprano asks jagged questions over the reed quintet’s simple chords.

The third movement, Sleep, is a 17th century translation of St. Ambrose’s 4th century original, is a wonderful piece of word painting. The soprano sings a simple, slow melody while the winds busily twitch; the process is essentially the reverse of the second movement.

The fourth movement, An Autumnal Song, comes from the simple texts in rhyming couplets of hymns meant for use in schoolrooms in colonial America. In this movement, An Autumnal Song, the soprano sings an invented hymn-tune while a trio of oboe, clarinet, and saxophone plaintively outlines falling figures. The bass clarinet and the bassoon aggressively intervene.

The final movement, Hark, the Vesper Hymn is Stealing, comes after the wordless vocalise that finishes part four, and is a setting of a simple hymn about the closing of the day. As with the fourth section, it comes from an 18th century hymn tune, vandalized slightly with motor-music, loose melodic figures, and anxious rhythmic interjections from the bassoon and bass clarinet.

Commissioning credit: "Hymns for Private Use" was commissioned by Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall, London, with the support of André Hoffmann, President of the Fondation Hoffmann,a Swiss grant-making foundation in 2012.